


Generous Invitations

by starscrearn



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Starscream as the leader of the Decepticons, blatant alcohol/high-grade use, mechs being nice to Starscream, no one gets really drunk but Starscream's a mess, they tried to celebrate and it turned into an emotional disaster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 16:22:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12708573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starscrearn/pseuds/starscrearn
Summary: Starscream just wanted to invite Knock Out over to celebrate Megatron's demise. But when high-grade and high-strung mechs mix, Knock Out puts his foot in it and has to deal with the consequences, and an upset Seeker.





	Generous Invitations

“Ah, Knock Out. So kind of you to join me.” There was a definite, fuzzy-edged purr to Starscream’s vocalizations.

“How could I refuse such a generous invitation?” Knock Out replied. It wasn’t every day the newly-appointed leader of the Decepticons sent a personal comm to his chief medical officer, asking him round to share a bottle of high-grade with him in his quarters. 

It was clear Starscream had started celebrating a little earlier by the sway in his step as he ambled back into the room. The cloak hanging off-kilter from his shoulders was also a tell-tale sign. It had clearly been tailor-made for him--eons ago, from the look of it. Possibly it was almost as old as the war, but Starscream had obviously taken care of it, or hadn’t worn it much.

“I like the cloak,” Knock Out remarked as Starscream poured him a drink. “Nice touch. Vosian?”

Starscream visibly preened, running a claw over the velvety material. “Yes, actually. I’m impressed you recognized it.”

_ Well, if you’re wearing it, there’s only so many things it could be _ . “Thank you.” He accepted the small glass of high-grade and lifted it in a toast. “To our new leader. May your command be more prosperous than Megatron’s!”

Knock Out heard Starscream’s fans kick on and his wings clicked together (in pride? Pleasure?) before the Seeker raised his own glass and replied, “I’ll drink to that.”

The medic’s optics widened when he got a taste of the stuff. There was high-grade and then there was  _ high-grade _ . It was smooth, and quite strong; the small glasses suddenly made more sense. They set their glasses back on the table, Starscream’s unsteady servo nearly causing him to drop the thing.

Knock Out gestured to the half-emptied bottle that sat between them. “May I?”

“Hm? Oh, be my guest, Commander.” 

It was the medic’s turn to preen. ‘Commander Knock Out’  _ did _ have a nice ring to it. “Can I pour you one too, my lord?”

Starscream pushed his glass at him by way of answering. A quiet clicking of wings was the only indication he’d heard the title.

Knock Out glanced from the bottle to the mech, estimating. If that bottle had been full when he started and if there was that much left… Starscream was probably a shot or two into being blitzed.

The mech in question chose that moment to stretch, wings clattering loudly together as he pulled himself up and slumped elegantly back into his chair, a study in casual (if rather inebriated) beauty. Knock Out almost choked. He did not almost knock the bottle off the table.

He  _ actually _ knocked it off the table. It shattered, splashing the remains of the high grade across their pedes. Starscream hissed and yanked his away to the tune of Knock Out’s creative swearing.

“Er--my apologies, my lord,” he managed, knowing full well that if the mech before him had been Megatron, his termination would be imminent. And it still could have been.

Starscream exvented loudly and waved it away. “It isn’t mine. And Megatron kept a healthy stock.”

He rose to retrieve a new bottle, snagged a heel strut in the hem of his cloak, and started to fall. Knock Out instinctively reached for him, wrapping a servo around his hip to steady him, and instead accidentally pulled him into his lap. Starscream did not land gracefully; the cloak muffled the clang of metal on metal, but it had also wrapped itself around his leg. His helm collided with one of Knock Out’s fenders, prompting a yelp of pain.

The Seeker’s chin quivered dangerously and Knock Out instinctively reached up to still it, gently dragging a digit down Starscream’s facial plates. The moment immediately passed.

“You  _ aft _ ,” Starscream spat, smacking a servo against Knock Out’s chassis. “If you’ve dented my helm--”

“Your helm’s fine, dearspark,” the medic replied. “But if you like, I can--”

Starscream interrupted him as his words worked their way through the haze of high-grade. “What did you just call me?”

Knock Out had to pause and replay the last few moments before he recalled.  _ Oh, slaggit. _ “Dear… spark?”

The Seeker scoffed, oblivious to the fact that his fans had just kicked on, filling the space between them with their quiet whirring as his systems tried to recover from the wave of heat that had surged through him at the pet name. “Is that any way to speak to your commanding officer?”

The medic was slightly less oblivious to those fans. He smirked. “Only when the commanding officer in question is so alluring.”

Starscream’s cooling systems audibly stalled before skipping directly to the highest setting. And if the widening of his optics was anything to go by, he was aware of it. He stammered meaninglessly for a moment, trying to force his glossa to spit out a sentence that made sense. What he got out was something that started with a “what?” and ended with a high-pitched squeak and burning facial plates buried in servos.

“Oh, frag.”

More mumbling from behind silver digits.

“Er, Starscream?” Knock Out readjusted his grip on the mech in his lap, bringing one servo up his side and resting the other across his knees. “Are you… alright?”

“Noone’severcalledmealluringbeforeordearspark.”

He shuttered his optics and quickly reopened them. “Exvent for me and say that again slower.”

It was barely audible over the continued roar of Starscream’s fans, but he managed an exvent. “No one’s… ” He lifted his facial plates out of his servos and immediately looked away. “Ever called me ‘alluring’ before. Or… or dearspark.”

Now it was Knock Out’s turn for widened optics and a stammered reply. “What--seriously?”

As it turned out, that was the wrong thing to say. Starscream burst into tears and slammed his helm back into his servos.

“Oh slag--ohslagohslagohslag--” What were you supposed to do when you had a lapful of crying Seeker?

Before Knock Out had a chance to figure it out, Starscream backhanded his chassis again. “Don’t say something like that if you don’t mean it!”

He shoved at him and only succeeded in pushing himself off of Knock Out’s lap onto the floor. The jolt shut him up for a moment, but all too soon the tears started back up. The moment they did, he drew his knees towards his chassis and gathered his cloak close around him, wings drooping so low they brushed the floor. They quivered despondently in counterpoint to the heaving of his shoulders.

When the crying showed no sign of stopping anytime soon, Knock Out joined him on the floor and laid a servo on his velvet-covered shoulder. “Starscream?”

The bot shifted aside. “Go ‘way.”

“Starscream, I meant it.”

There was a definite hitch of vents before Starscream lifted his helm off of his knees. “What?”

Knock Out reached up a careful digit and swiped away a trail of optical cleanser. “I meant it, dearspark. All of it.”

The words left his vocalizer before his processor got a grip on them. “Prove it.”

The medic slowly, carefully, giving him ample time to protest, gathered the Seeker into his arms and stood, cradling the slim mech close to his chassis. “I find it hard to believe you’ve never been someone’s sweetspark.”   


Starscream wanted to be angry with him. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t wanted that! But despite himself, he curled down against him, rearranging his wings into a more comfortable position. “War leaves little time for such… relations.”

“There wasn’t always the war.”

His vocalizer barked out a derisive laugh. “There wasn’t?”

“Mechs used to have time for things like this.” Knock Out pressed a gentle kiss against the crest of Starscream’s helm. “Maybe we should find the time for that again.”

Starscream fell silent and Knock Out worried he’d overstepped. Suddenly he wanted to set the mech back on his pedes and apologize and excuse himself as quickly as possible and they could both forget about this. And then Starscream laid his servo flat against the middle of Knock Out’s chassis. He didn’t push, just left it there a moment, feeling the sparkbeat deep beneath the metal.

“Stay the night?” His vocalizations had grown subdued, and for the first time, he sounded truly vulnerable. “There’s room.”

Starscream’s facial plates didn’t look like they were supposed to do sincere. But they did their best, and Knock Out didn’t have the spark to refuse.

“I’ll stay."

**Author's Note:**

> I actually wrote most of this to distract myself from how much I hate IDW Froid, so sorry about that, I think? If I screwed up their characters, that's probably why. There might be a part two if I can come up with anything, but for now, this is complete.


End file.
